The longest 'holiday'

A while ago Sophie asked me what it is I enjoy so much about cycling. It surprised me I couldn't really answer. The speed? The challenge? The discovery?

I recently had time to think about her question.

Over the course of 10 days I pedalled 1,939 kilometres, climbed 41,685 metres, and explored 100 cols in the Southern Alps of France and Italy. Over these days I spent pretty much every moment riding or preparing to ride.

Before setting out I didn't know if I could do it. The numbers were terrifying. Most of the individual rides were bigger than anything I'd done before. Scarier still: they were to be ridden back-to-back with a single rest day in the middle.

But I did it. How? I'm not entirely sure. As I wrote to team leader, Phil Deeker, the day after completing the Rapha Cent Cols Challenge: 'did we just do that or did I dream it?! Beautiful. That's all I'll say for now as I need time to find the words...'

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The more I think about it, the more similarities I see between my battle up the 100 cols and that with the GBM 'Terminator'. At the outset the numbers scared the shit out of me in just the same way, the journey was bumpier than I expected, the rewards greater. In large part a passion for cycling (and to get home to Ing and Ernie!) drove me on. Even then, the end of every day brought a mix of elation and fear with it: elation of making it through another stage, fear that I wouldn't survive the next. Similarly, my last MRI scan brought elation as it's been my best yet. But the fight continues.

Another parallel: I just couldn't have done it alone. I was pushed on by Rapha team's tough love (Phil!), warmth (Louise), smiles (Will) and technical savviness (Chris); and by inspiration from fellow riders--Anna's generosity, Nuno's analytics, Dean's tales, Mark's jokes, Dzhamil's resilience, Sarah's steadiness, Sean's passion, Charlie's power.

Looking back on our shared pains, tears (both kinds!) and joys we laughed that this could be marketed as the 'longest 10-day holiday you will ever experience'. But even in this wry joke there was truth, and possibly the answer to Sophie's question: the cycling pilgrimage brought home for me that the beauty of the sport lies in how it frees the rider from time. In Kundera's words:

'The [rider] haunched over his bike can focus only on the present... He is caught in a fragment of time cut off from both the past and future... He has no fear, because the source of fear is in the future, and a person freed of the future has nothing to fear.'

And thus an infinite 89 hours and 55 minutes flew by. Bring on the next.
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